Unofficial Shrine To Malice Green Demolished

What’s left of the building where a makeshift Malice Green memorial was painted. (credit: Pat Sweeting/WWJ)

DETROIT (WWJ/AP) – An unofficial shrine to Malice Green that stood in Detroit for 20 years has been reduced to rubble.

The storefront that once bore the portrait of Malice Green, who was fatally beaten by Detroit police, was leveled Monday.

An artist had painted a portrait of Green on the storefront, located near where he was beaten in 1992. People often stopped at the building and gathered there to remember Green’s death.

What’s left of the memorial. (credit: Pat Sweeting/WWJ)

Area resident Betty Dean has lived in the area, of 23rd and West Warren, since 1979, and had gotten used to seeing the landmark.

She’s a bit dismayed to see it demolished.

“They do all kinds of stuff now … you think they would have kept it for something, but I don’t know. They do what they wanna do,” Dean said.

Dean said, over the years, the artist would stop by and touch up the painting. Others added inscriptions.

Dean said the destruction of the building is just one example of how the neighborhood has changed. She pointed to a burned out shell of a home just yard away and, across Warren, another blighted house. Nearby, there are several vacant lots in which the grass has grown waist-high.

“Hopefully they’ll clean it up (the rubble) and they’re selling the company,” she said. “They could give some of these people who are in jail and let them do it … have them help clean it up.”

Dean said her son helps cut the grass at properties near her home, but he can’t do it all.

Two Detroit police officers were convicted of second-degree murder in Green’s death. The case made headlines because the officers were white and Green was black. The convictions were overturned, but the officers later were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.